Let’s Talk Overrated Makeup Products

Turns out, not everything works out as well as you’d hope! Let’s have a chat about overrated makeup products that simply don’t live up to the hype (or expectations).

Do you ever sit at your vanity, skimming over makeup products that were just complete duds? Some of them you maybe even heard a lot of hype about and went in with high expectations – only to be left disappointed and wanting your money back.

Well, that’s the topic of discussion today…

Overrated Makeup Products

First off, I know. Makeup truly is a subjective thing and what works for some isn’t guaranteed for others. Likewise, it often comes down to preference. What I like might not be your cup of tea and vice versa. So if there’s a product you see here that you happen to love? That’s great! Perhaps mine was just defective…or perhaps we have just different tastes. Either way, not trying to step on anyone’s toes.

Also, I genuinely love other products from the brands here so it’s nothing at all against the brands. This is just an in good fun post about some overrated makeup products I’ve stumbled upon that just didn’t work out as I hoped. Since all of these products pop up in magazines and blog posts with RAVE reviews, I want to throw my experiences out there to balance the scales so to speak. The good and the bad!

On that note, let’s dig into some beauty products that made the naughty list!

(Forgive the disclaimer of sorts…it just makes me feel bad when I don’t like something. #TooNice #OkayMaybeNotThatNice)

Chanel Eyeshadow

Let’s start off with Chanel. I’m here to tell you, don’t waste your money on their eyeshadow. While they release quad after quad of beautiful color variations, they’re powdery…barely pigmented and last just about an hour. It’s kind of shocking given how amazing the Chanel foundations, lipstick and skincare is…not to mention it’s, hello, CHANEL!! But what can I say? Chanel eyeshadow is just not worth it. Overrated, indeed. Get some Dior instead to really show them, ha!

Revlon Colorstay Foundation

When pulling together my bag of overrated makeup products, I felt like I was bound to hit a nerve with some folks by declaring my dislike of the Revlon Colorstay foundation. This is a foundation that I again and again see people swear-by as their ultimate favorite from the drugstore. I’ve even seen it compared as a “dupe” to one of my holy grail favs…the famous Mac Studio Fix Fluid. (Which frankly, I find laughable.)

What IS great about the Colorstay foundation? It’s made in two formula variations: an oily and a dry skin. There’s also a very large selection of shades available. So, from an all-inclusive standpoint Revlon is above the bar. In the end though, when I wear this foundation…I want to claw my face off. It’s so heavy. It feels like you’re suffocating in an unbearable face mask and by the end of the day you’ll be RACING to wash your face. I also don’t find it to be all that long-wearing. It breaks apart and settles in patches. All around, I’m not a fan and don’t understand the hype one bit.

Michael Todd Beauty Exfoliating Scrub

Now, I might be just spoiled on this one because I have stumbled upon some really gosh darn fantastic facial scrubs on top of my Clarisonic. But alas, I found Michael Todd Beauty’s facial scrub to be a complete waste of time. It has large beads very thinly mixed into the cleanser, making it pretty darn difficult to make a measurable difference on anyone’s skin. I suppose you could go to the trouble of using this both in the morning and the evening, seven days a week… but at that rate you’d be flying through a lot of product. Why not invest in something better instead, y’know?

*From disclosure standpoint, I do have to say that Michael Todd did send me this product. Obviously I’m not being paid to share my thoughts though because…LOL, why would they want me to call it a dud?

Kylie Cosmetics Burgundy Palette

Try as I did to love Kylie Jenner’s eyeshadow palette as much as so many others seem to…I’m going to have to include this on my list of overrated makeup products as well. While beautifully pigmented with a gorgeous color selection, the eyeshadow simply doesn’t last. At. All.

And if you can’t count on your eyeshadow to last more than three to four hours, honestly…what IS the point? Pass.

Balmain x Loreal Lipstick Collaboration

There have been so many exciting makeup launches and collaborations this year, with Balmain’s partnership with L’Oreal as one of the most anticipated. Sadly, however, the lipsticks simply don’t live up to expectation or even L’Oreal’s usual standard. They’re streaky, kinda glue-y with pretty but cheaply packaged that ALL came with holes in it…and so forth. My hope is that L’Oreal will heed the feedback from this collaboration and do it up better but for anything planned for the future, but for now…I’ll say this collab was one big, overly hyped flop!

VegaLash Eyelash Serum

Another product that was sent to me (that I’m clearly not being paid to promote) is the VegaLash eyelash serum. You may have caught this ALL over Instagram and YouTube in 2017 as they made a really big push to bring in bloggers and beauty gurus to hype up this “lash growth” miracle product. Before trying the product itself, I saw the promo videos to be generally misleading as they went from bare lashes to lashes with mascara as a way of demonstrating a big difference. Welp, obviously VegaLash can’t take credit for what a good mascara can do. Y’know? When they emailed me though, I said sure – send it my way and I’m happy to give it a try. Who knew. Maybe I’d be happily surprised!

Every single day for a month, I’d brush this on my bare lashes in the morning and at night…with no results. None. Not even a slight difference. I may as well have been applying water to my eyes, or better? Nothing.

I WAS planning to do a large blog post about my VegaLash experience because I do see the product overly hyped in a very misleading way…but somehow never got it around to it. Woopsies! Forgive me but this post will have to suffice.

Overall, I give the VegaLash eyelash serum one giant pass. Get yourself some great mascara and save your money! 🙂

Wet n Wild Cushion Highlight Illuminateur

It actually pains me to including anything from Wet n Wild on an overrated makeup products list because I think they do a bang up job 90% of the time! In fact, some of their (extremely) affordable and cruelty-free beauty gems are truly hitting it out of the park. Their new Photofocus foundation (here) is truly my favorite makeup discovery of the year, after all!

Too boot, their highlighters are famous. So, of course when they released a cushion bronzer and highlighter I had to snatch them both up. I’ll say the bronzer is quite nice, but this highlighter missed the mark for me. It dried weirdly in an unflattering way and didn’t have quite the oomph of their other cult favorite powder highlights.

(It’s okay though, Wet n’ Wild. I still love you…lots.)

NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Cruella

Perhaps the most perplexing to me of all the overhyped makeup products on this list is: NARS’ Cruella. This has got to be the most hyped-up red lipstick on the planet. I swear.

And for the LIFE of me I cannot understand why.

It bleeds everywhere. It’s drying. It’s the LEAST long lasting matte lipstick I’ve tried ever and the color pay-off is average at best. And yet, I see and hear about this lipstick constantly. Even years after its release. I don’t get it and as a big fan of NARS, I’m pretty surprised to be so underwhelmed.

(I will say the color of the red itself is gorgeous and highly recommend MAC’s Russian Red…which is very similar, but is not at all drying and lasts about 6 hours longer.)

Elf Baked Highlighter in Moonlight Pearls

Last but not least on my list of overrated makeup products? A baked highlighter from ELF in the shade Moonlight Pearls. I’m not willing to write off the full selection (as it does include some other great shades, here)…but this one just didn’t do it for me at all.

I found the highlighter to be really chalky on itself. Additionally, when applied with a brush it virtually disappeared when transferring to your face. Even when trying to build and build! I did manage to get the job done when directly rubbing the highlighter on my cheekbone like a bar of soap…but that’s generally kind of weird and maybe not your preferred way of applying makeup. At $4, it’s not a crisis waste of money by any means but since Elf does have some pretty incredible products available…thought I’d throw it out there that this one is not. Sorry!